Oct 31, 2017

The Daily Formation of Character

A Challenge in Esoteric Philosophy

Carlos Cardoso Aveline

The idea of
character relates to the mental and emotional structure of an individual.
Character is the source of one’s attitude towards life and reactions to it. One’s
average thoughts and feelings are powerfully influenced by it.

Many are content to say that character results from karma. And it has
indeed to do with habits.

For a student of theosophy, however, character is not merely a fruit
from the past. It is also a seed for the future.

Character as it is now is above all the raw material with which the
student must build his true, future character, or that specific sort of
lower-self structure that can best answer to the sacred impulses of his higher
self or spiritual soul.

Character results therefore not so much from previous lives or childhood
and youth, although these are important factors.

It also grows from our daily discipline and our attempts to live every
week according to the ideal of human progression and perfection, which the
secret science depicts.

The life-patterns of human existence are flexible and can be changed
from within, for they are largely determined by thoughts, which respond to one’s
will.

Our higher purpose points to
bliss and belongs to the inner self. Helena P. Blavatsky wrote about the refuge
one must build in his own consciousness, where rest can be taken any time.

One finds the same idea in
the “Dhammapada”. Mystics of every tradition, Eastern and Western, teach about the unconditional source of peace in
one’s heart and mind.

The Center of Inner Peace

As one makes progress along the path, even small steps make the
substance of one’s lower self become more plastic and subtle than that of average
individuals, thus changing the equation between inner and outer life, on the various
levels of existence.

One’s character then becomes both strong and flexible.

The reinforcement of the will and a growing detachment regarding outward
reality compensate the fact that the density of one’s lower self is decreasing.

The process is necessary for the light of inner peace to flow from the
center within one’s heart towards all lives around. That demands a firm
resolve, courage, humbleness - and constant vigilance.

000

The above text
combines and adapts two fragments first published respectively on pp. 3 and 2
of the “The Aquarian Theosophist”, May 2014 edition. The larger of the
fragments was also published at the May 2016 edition of “The Aquarian”, p. 8. They
had no indication as to the name of the author.